


Raising Betsy Ross' flag higher

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Betty Exists, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dating, Early Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Love & Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2019-11-06 03:50:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17932301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: Girl goes to bar. Girl meets boy. Girl gets drunk. Boy proves to be a real gentleman.Betty, Steve, and the craft beer that smooths the road to happiness.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theMightyPen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theMightyPen/gifts).



> One part of L's birthday present! Since this one is early the other will probably be late, oops, ily <3

Betty doesn’t go out much. 

That makes her sound boring, and she is, but that isn’t why. She doesn’t go out much because she hates the feeling of being followed by one of her father’s goons, and she doesn’t like knowing she’s being stared at by some steroid-brained gorilla while she’s having a drink. Mostly she brings the dog out for a run, and then she curls up on the couch with a bottle of wine and the newest episode of SVU, and Genny snores on the rug in front of the TV. It’s a quiet life, but it’s one that feels a little less invaded by her father’s presence, so that suits her just fine.

Until tonight. She’s had a long day at work - when Tony does his lab inspections, an eight hour day lasts at least sixteen - and she wants to sit at a bar and drink a couple of cold beers and maybe eat some shitty peanuts. She wants to have a complete stranger look at her ass, maybe, because she spends her days surrounded by weird scientists - weird even by her standards - and spies who report her every move back to her father. 

Betty wants, just for a couple of hours, to feel like a normal woman in her thirties. That doesn’t seem like a lot to ask, but she’s been careful about asking for anything for a very long time.

There’s a bar two streets and five doors down from her brownstone - bought with that sweet, sweet Tidewater inheritance money, locked in trust so Thunderbolt could never lay a hand on it - where they serve the sort of overpriced craft beers Jane loves to ply Betty with at Tony’s weird work parties, owned by one of the bigger small batch breweries that has Jane’s exacting seal of approval. It’s got comfy bar stools, the kind with a little back to lean against, and the barstaff are only a little flirty, and she feels safe eating from the bowls of nuts on the counter. Jane called it  _ bougie,  _ which it probably is, but Betty did cotillion so she thinks she can get away with being bougie from time to time.

“You got any of that grapefruit sour IPA?” she asks, laying her coat over the back of the stool right at the corner of the bar and sliding into her seat. “Or one of those blackcurrant stouts, those were good.”

“Hey, you were here with Janey-O for the tasting, right?” the girl behind the bar says. She has a septum piercing and a smile, and Betty decides right there to tip generously. “Yeah, I think I’ve got the grapefruit - right outta the blackcurrant, though. Dude down the bar is  _ laying  _ into our stocks, so keep your eyes peeled.”

The only other person sitting at the bar is hunched over a bottle with a bright purple label - and  _ what  _ a hunch. You could build a house on those shoulders, although Betty can think of at least three things that would be quicker and more fun. Maybe Shoulders over there can be the stranger who looks at her ass tonight - what’s the worst that can happen?

She moves on quickly from that thought. 

“He a regular?” she asks the girl behind the bar, who shrugs.

“Depends what you consider regular,” she says. “Maybe once a month, he comes in, drinks us dry of whatever he’s feeling that night, and walks out of here sober as a judge. Nice guy. Tips well.”

Ah, shit. Betty thinks that maybe he isn’t quite as much of a stranger as she hoped.

“Hey,” she says, shuffling four stools down the bar to settle in beside Steve, her bottle of beer in one hand and her coat in the other. “This seat taken?”

He looks around, blinking those big, patriotic baby blues, and frowns very slightly.

“Elizabeth, right?”

“No one calls me that except my grandmother,” she says. “Betty. Nice to finally meet you, Steve.”

He smiles, a smile she’s never seen at any of the parties or on any of the press releases, and she can see something in him settle down, just like she did.

“Grapefruit?” he asks. “Really?”

“I did  _ not _ come over here to keep you company so you could mock my taste, Rogers.”

 

* * *

Steve, sober as a judge, walks Betty home. Turns out he lives a street further on than her, in a brownstone very like hers, bought with all that army backpay. 

She doesn’t invite him in that night.

When they just happen to bump into one another on the same stools at the same bar two weeks later, he walks her home again, and she still doesn’t invite him in.

The third time, he walks her home, and he asks her to come to Tony’s next weird party as his date.

“My dress is royal blue,” she says. “Dress accordingly.”

 

* * *

When Betty does go out -  _ really  _ go out, not just have enough bottles of weird beer that Steve needs to give her a piggyback ride home from the bar - she likes to go to Pepper’s parties.

Because that’s the thing Steve hasn’t realised. They aren’t Tony’s parties. They’re Pepper’s.

Pepper organises elegant evenings in the Stark penthouse, with just enough canapes and just enough alcohol, with tasteful decorations and pleasant music.

But the mix of people tends to be… Strange.

Tony brings the Avengers to every party, no matter what sort of party it’s supposed to be. That alone would be strange, but he also invites people like Jane, who Betty loves despite her complete lack of standard social skills, and Reed Richards, who’s brilliant but an asshole. At least with Reed comes Su Storm, who Betty just adores, and sometimes Su’s brother, who is a party of on his own, if you catch him in the right mood.

Bill Nye is usually there too. He’s probably the nicest person Betty’s ever met. 

Tonight, it’s mostly a sciencey crowd anyway - Pepper has arranged a new annual endowment to four school districts in the city in Tony’s name, so it’s a little less balanced than usual. Maybe it’s the higher quotient of nerds that causes the sudden drop off in conversation when Betty walks into the room on Steve’s arm.

“Tough crowd,” Steve says, moving them neatly in Pepper and Jim’s direction. They, at least, know how to hold a normal conversation. 

“Doctor Ross,” Jim says, passing her a bottle of beer. “Good to see you.”

“Colonel Rhodes,” Betty says, clinking her bottle to his. “I was kind of hoping you’d be in uniform, Jim, I won’t lie.”

“Not the time, Betty,” he says with a grin, nudging his shoulder against Pepper’s. “Looking better now that you’ve accessorised, though.”

“Prime arm candy,” Steve agrees, accepting a bottle from Pepper with a polite, wholesome smile of thanks that is really undercut by the way his  _ other _ hand just happened to slide right down to the bottom of Betty’s back, half an inch above her ass. “I’d forgotten how nice it is to be a dumb blond - feels good.”

He really does look like a prime cut tonight, in a shirt that matches Betty’s dress almost exactly, and a crisply black suit. He’s just tall enough that she isn’t towering over him in her Pigalles, and he’s so satisfyingly solid to lean against.

“Usual crowd?” Betty asks. “Please tell me Tony didn’t invite the Pyms.  _ Please.” _

“Only Hope,” Pepper assures her. “Hank still isn’t talking to him. You’re safe.”

“Hope is the one who kicked Clint in the junk last time, right?” Steve asks, looking delighted at the prospect. “He didn’t try and perch on Thor’s shoulders for like a  _ month _ after that. Remind me to thank her.”

 

* * *

Natasha Romanoff is probably the Avenger Betty knows least. Tony won’t get the damn hell out of her lab, Clint keeps dropping by - more literally than she’d like - to ask if she can put anthrax on his arrows, Thor and Jane don’t live together only in the sense that Jane is still paying rent for her pokey little apartment on the Upper West Side to maintain a facade of independence, even though she and all her stuff resides in Thor’s apartment here in the Tower. Bruce, well, that’s its own thing, and now Steve is something similar but also completely different, which just leaves Natasha.

“Loved what you did with those Doombots last week in Delaware,” Betty says when Natasha appears from the shadows in front of her. “How did you know overloading one’s circuits would trigger a chain?”

“Lucky guess,” the most dangerous woman in the room says, grinning like a tigress. “So you’re Steve’s new squeeze. Nice to finally put a face to the name.”

“That would be more charming if I didn’t know you have a file on me.”

The tigress bares her teeth just a little more.

“Can’t blame me for being careful,” she says. “We have a much bigger file on your father.”

“Then maybe you can tell me when exactly he started surveilling me, so I can know which college friends to ghost.”

 

* * *

“I’m  _ very  _ bad at dancing,” Steve says, blushing enough that Betty is afraid, just for a moment, that Tony will notice. “C’mon, Bets, do I gotta-”

“I’m a good little rich girl,” she tells him. “I can’t go to a party and  _ not  _ dance, and since you’re my escort-”

“Why, Doctor Ross, we haven’t even discussed terms!”

“Shut up, Rogers,” she laughs. “Come on, Steve, what’s the worst that can happen?”

“We could be so busy dancing I forget to save the world?”

“Hilarious.”

They dance. He has a wonderful sense of time, great rhythm, and a control over his body that has her mind six layers down into the sewer, way, way past the gutter.

Betty isn’t unaware that Steve is attractive, or that she’s attracted to him. She’s been aware of that all month, since she slid down the bar and into his solitude. But it’s never really been so inescapable as it is right now, with his big, gentle hand on the small of her back, his brow nearly touching hers when he dips his head to laugh, when he’s all big and warm and  _ steady.  _

She’s missed things being steady. Maybe that’s why she’s a little more open to negotiations with Steve after less than a month than with anyone else she’s met since Bruce, even though she’s dated so carefully that her friends have started teasing that she’s become a serial monogamist.

Betty has had to be careful, since Bruce. Since her dad started watching her so close. Steve is so firm and unchanging that she feels like maybe, with him on her team, she can afford to be a little reckless.

 

* * *

Steve gets kind of handsy when he’s dancing, but Betty’s interested in seeing what he’s like while drunk. That’s why she gave Jane advance warning to have Thor bring a little something from home. 

“I haven’t been drunk since the thirties,” he says, sprawled big and handsome all over one of Pepper’s low velour couches. “I forgot what it’s like to be an idiot.”

“You must have worked hard at that,” Jane’s Darcy says, settled on Jim’s lap and looking utterly delighted by her luck. “Big hunk o’meat like you, or Thor.”

“There is a sublime intelligence in stupidity,” Thor says, sounding very wise until he adds “I would know.”

Jane starts giggling. Betty joins in.  _ So does Steve. _

“You’re a silly drunk,” she whispers to him. “This is wonderful. Have some more.”

“Nah,” he says, sipping at his drink. “Won’t be able to kiss you if I’m much drunker’en this.”

“Is that a fact, soldier?” she laughs. “I thought we hadn’t discussed terms.”

“Dancing is different,” he tells her earnestly. “That’s in public.”

“Everything you do is in public, Steve.”

“Not kissing. That’s behind closed doors.”

He’s looking her right in the eye, very blue and very sharp - not nearly as drunk as she thought, with the way he tucks her firmly under his arm and lowers his gaze to her mouth.

And lingers.

“Huh,” she manages. “Don’t you have an apartment here in the Tower?”

He raises his hand to catch a bright little flask that Thor apparently tossed his way. 

“Sure do,” he says. “Retina scan so I don’t even need a key.”

“I think you ought to show me what sort of decor Tony inflicted on you,” she tells him. “I figure it was bad to start, but it’s probably much worse now that you decided to move out.”

He sort of… Appears upright. Betty’s been sipping slowly at her peach ciders and mango ales and boysenberry sours all night, so she isn’t  _ drunk,  _ but she feels pretty sure she missed the bit where Steve actually stands up. She doesn’t think too hard about it, though, because he’s got both of their drinks in hand and he’s helping her to her feet.

“Do it for all of us,” Jane calls from across the room, and Betty raises her recovered beer in salute, because she  _ fully  _ intends on climbing this particular patriotic mountain.

A little more silence echoes in their wake as they wander over toward the door, and Betty rounds it out by slipping her hand into Steve’s back pocket and winking over her shoulder to a thrilled Pepper, beside whom Tony is having a stroke. Betty can’t think of anything funnier in the whole world.

Okay. Maybe she  _ is _ drunk.

 

* * *

Pepper left a care package of clothes in Betty’s size outside Steve’s door at some point during the night, and Jim arrives a little after ten with coffees bigger than his head.

“Figured you might be all tuckered out,” he says, pressing one of them into her hand while he lets himself in. “Wow. Tony was  _ really  _ offended when Steve moved out.”

The whole apartment is a nightmare of kitschy 40s reproductions, but not the good kind which Betty knows Tony could afford. Oh no, instead, everything is nylony and plasticy and just generally awful, and what she thought was a record player turned out to actually be an AM radio and cassette player  _ disguised  _ as a record player.

Tony really knows how to make it hurt, when he puts his mind to it.

“Good night?”

“I could ask the same,” she says, kicking the door shut and returning to her perch in the window seat. “How  _ was  _ Miss Darcy Lewis, twenty-four and flirty?”

“A sleepy drunk,” Jim admits. “She’s a sweet girl, but…”

“A little girlish for your tastes?” Betty guesses. Jim’s many things - one of Betty’s favourite people, a man of bizarre taste given how much he sincerely enjoys Tony’s company, one of the few people in the US Armed Forces who has neither respect nor fear for Betty’s father - but he’s never been a cradle-snatcher, which was why Betty had been quietly surprised by the way he’d been playing along with Jane’s Darcy’s flirting last night.

“Same could be said of you and Rogers. Either way, depending on how you look at it,” he points out, which earns him a solid punch to the centre of his chest. “Hey, just think of this as me preparing you for Tony’s assault, Ross. You know that’s coming.”

“Pepper’ll dump him if he’s too mean, and he knows it,” Betty says. “Now ask your questions before Steve gets back from his run, because he’ll get all bashful and vintage, and you’ll get so embarrassed that you won’t get any details for Pepper.”

“I don’t  _ get  _ embarrassed,” Jim says, which is mostly true. “But I wouldn’t want to disappoint a national icon, either. Alright then - spill.”

Betty sips her coffee and smiles.

“Let’s just say I pledged my allegiance with great enthusiasm,” she says, “and leave it at that.”

 

* * *

They sit in the park, back to back, braced against one another’s strength for comfort. It’s sunny and warm, and there’s an ice-cream truck tinkling somewhere nearby, and a couple of kids are tossing a frisbee back and forth.

Steve is sketching. Betty can hear his pencil scratching on the paper, and the little dissatisfied  _ hmms _ before he brings out his eraser. 

Betty is reading some shitty Fifty Shades rip-off, because Jane dared her to. Jane apparently got half a chapter in before throwing her copy out a window, and Betty has never been able to resist trying to outdo Jane.

“Hey, Bets?”

“Yeah, Steve?”

“Can I paint you?”

They’ve been dating for nearly six months, and this is the first Betty’s heard about painting. Sketching, drawing, some watercolour pastels she picked up when she as at a conference in Nevada and he was Avenging somewhere in Ohio, sure, but painting? That’s new.

“I didn’t know you painted.”

“I’m a man of hidden depths.”

She sits up straight so suddenly that he overbalances, and ends up flat on his back behind her. The kids with the frisbee laugh when Steve starts cursing, and Betty settles more comfortably while he rearranges himself.

“I haven’t painted in a while,” he admits. “Since before the war, probably, but I’d like to try again, and I can’t think of a prettier picture to paint than yours.”

“Sweet talker,” she chides, which makes him give her one of those big apple pie smiles that make her want to climb on top of him. “Do you mean a life painting? Or something less nude?”

“Less nude. I’m going to draw you naked before I paint you. Sexier that way.”

She laughs at that, because no one sounds good saying  _ sexy _ but Steve sounds outright ridiculous.

 

* * *

They go to another of Pepper’s parties a little while later.

This one is arguably Tony’s. It’s to celebrate the foiling of some dastardly plan by a weird robotics genius from Oregon who wanted to bring down the Capitol and replace government with some kind of hive-mind robot minions. Betty was tempted to steal one of the robots from Tony’s mechanical quarantine so she can launch it at Thunderbolt, but Jim talked her out of it.

This time, Steve gets ready at Betty’s place.

Betty’s just finished in the shower when he arrives, which is how he finds her in her wrapped in a towel with her hair in a shower cap. 

“Pepper sent one of her people over to do my hair this afternoon,” she says, wagging a finger into his pinkening face. “Don’t  _ dare _ laugh.”

He steps around her into the bathroom and slams the door just barely in time to muffle his laughter.

“I hope you slip!” she calls, hammering on the door. “Fuck you, Rogers!”

He keeps on laughing, so she gives up on him and goes to get dressed. Her dress for tonight is a dark red number, a Mad Men-style wiggle dress that she bought with the specific intention of giving Steve an old man coronary. She’ll be a little taller than him in the shoes to go with it, but that’s fine - she’s never minded dating small men.

His suit tonight, when he emerges from the bathroom, is a pitch-black three piece over a crisp white shirt. His waist looks ridiculously narrow, and she’d be embarrassed about staring if he wasn’t looking at the cling of her (shaping) slip like a starving man.

“I’ll need you to zip me up,” she says, putting away her mascara before standing up. His eyes stay on the pushed-up rise of her cleavage while he nods, and who’s ever going to know if she plays it up a little as she wrestles her way into her dress?

He swallows audibly when she turns to reveal her zipper.

“Your ass,” he says, “looks  _ unbelievable _ right now.”

“I’m amazed you looked away from my boobs long enough to notice.”

“Aren’t you supposed to compliment my ass now?”

“Maybe I would, if there weren’t half a dozen Twitter accounts dedicated to it.”

He holds her hand as she steps into her shoes, licking his lips when he has to look up to meet her eyes, and then they’re both laughing.

“Come on, creep,” she says. “Pepper’ll kill us if we’re late.”

“Nah,” Steve says. “But Tony won’t shut up if we’re late with you looking this good.”

 

* * *

They’re less than ten minutes late, and they arrive before Thor and Jane, but Tony still manages to make five jokes at the expense of Steve’s superlibido before they’ve even reached the bar.

“I’ll push him out a window if he doesn’t shut up,” Betty vows. “See how much he likes flying without his damn suit.”

“He’s got one primed and ready,” Bruce says, nudging in beside her. “Good to see you, Betty.”

“And you,” she says, even though it’s… It’s never good or bad to see Bruce. Things are as they are, and while she’s so, so happy to see him building some kind of happiness for himself, well. She’s always going to feel it, that she wasn’t enough to help him find that stability.

Steve detaches himself with a murmured something about finding Nat, and she lets him go with a pat on the arm. He’s a lot more tactful than people give him credit for, which is one of the things she likes best about him.

“I hear things are going really well,” she says, smiling as sincerely as she can manage. “Helen says she’s isolated-”

“We don’t need to talk shop, Betty,” Bruce says, looking a little pained. Betty can relate to that. “I just wanted to check in, that’s all. Steve’s a good guy.”

“My father hates him.”

“A good start. Does your grandmother like him?”

Betty’s grandmother is a grand dame of the Southern Belle variety, a prime example of a dying species of really old school, old money Southerners, and she’d hated the very  _ idea _ of Bruce. Steve, despite being Catholic, kind of socialist, and the son of immigrant parents, has her enthusiastic seal of approval.

“Yeah, I thought she might,” Bruce says, and his grin is a little less forced this time. “That’s good, Betty, that’s really good. I’m glad.”

He turns back to his drink then, leaving her free to answer Steve’s hail of “Bets! Hey, Bets, get a load of this!” without guilt.

Well, without  _ much _ guilt. It’ll take more than one awkward round of well-wishing to shift that particular burden.

 

* * *

Genny  _ loves  _ Steve.

Betty never thought she’d own a dog, especially not a huge Newfoundland with paws like soup bowls and a habit of slobbering over every pair of suede shoes she meets. Genny - General, to give her her right name - was a gift from Thunderbolt, one Betty hadn’t wanted until she went and fell in love with her big dumb puppy.

Genny loves five people. Thunderbolt is not on that list.

“Bets,” Steve says sleepily, still wearing his uniform pants and boots, with half a dozen ice-packs on his back, stinking up her bedroom with arnica lotion. “Bets, you know I love Genny. I do.”

“Not half as much as she loves you,” Betty assures him, pushing his hair back from his face so she can check the stitches in the cut above his eye. “Sometimes I think she likes you more than me.”

“Please, Bets,” Steve says. “Take her off my legs.  _ Please.  _ My feet are numb. I’m not even sure I  _ have  _ feet anymore.”

“They’re there!” Betty promises. “I just can’t get your boots off because Genny’s slobbering all over them.”

Truthfully, Betty wouldn’t have slept with Steve had Genny not liked him. But from the very first night he walked her home, Genny’s yipped like a terrier and licked Steve’s hand every time he comes to the door, and Betty’s learned to trust her dog’s judgement.

Genny loves Pepper, but she regards Tony with disdainful distrust. Betty’s never needed more of a test than that.

“She knows you’re hurt, Rogers,” Betty says, hiding her very real concern behind amusement at Genny’s antics. She’s seen Steve beaten and bloodied plenty of times before, but it’s never seemed to knock him this way. “She’s just trying to help.”

He opens his eye just enough to roll it at her, and smiles enough to crack the scab on his split lip. He took one hell of a beating this time, and Betty wonders if every time he winces, it’s a bone knitting back together. 

She wishes to God some kind of painkiller short of ketamine worked for him, or even that she could get her hands on ketamine without having to leave him for an hour to get to the Tower and back. It might have been easier if he’d gone to his apartment there, but he’d come straight to Betty’s door and leaned on Genny all the way up the stairs and into Betty’s bedroom, and he’d struggled out of the top half of his uniform when she ran downstairs to find her ice packs and frozen blueberries.

“I’m trying to help, too,” she says, once she thinks he’s fallen asleep.

“Kiss it better, Bets,” he murmurs, which almost earns him a slap.

 

* * *

“You and Steve have missed my last two parties,” Pepper says over herbal tea and rosewater cookies. Jane is hungover, Hope is having an argument over text, and Helen is neck-deep in reports. “Anything you want to tell me?”

“We’ve been shuffling some boxes,” Betty says, narrowing her eyes at Pepper. “Although you already knew that.”

“I might have heard a thing or two. Feel like filling in the blanks?”

“Steve’s got maybe a third as much stuff as me, so it made sense for him to move,” Betty says. “And he spends pretty much every night at my place anyway - it was the best way to do it.”

“I’m a little insulted you didn’t tell me,” Pepper says. “Or that you didn’t tell Jim, so that he could tell me.”

“Jim helped us move some of the boxes, Pep. Not my fault he kept that to himself.”

“All of that aside,” Pepper says, “you’ve missed my parties - what’s with that?”

Steve’s made some kind of deal that keeps Thunderbolt’s goons off of Betty’s back, so she feels more comfortable going out now than she did a year ago. Thing is, she doesn’t really  _ want  _ to go out lately. It’s nice to sit curled up under Steve’s arm with a bottle of beer and a good book, Genny snoring on the rug in front of the TV and some movie Steve missed while he was sleeping on low.

“We’ve had plans, Pep,” Betty says. “But we’ll come to the next one, promise.”

Pepper looks sceptical, and Betty doesn’t care a damn.


	2. The Commie and the Captain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trouble _really_ starts when a gossip rag reports on CAPTAIN AMERICA calling his dog Commie.
> 
> That's a lie. The trouble started a while before that.

They adopt a second dog, and call this one Commander.

“Genny’s going to hate him,” Steve says cheerfully, jogging along in Commie’s waddling little wake. “I can’t wait.”

“Genny loves all creatures, great and small,” Betty says loyally, even though Genny’s general distaste for the overwhelming majority of the planet’s population, human and otherwise, is legendary. “Be nice. It was her house first.”

Commie gives a sharp little bark, waggling his hindquarters and tugging at his lead. He’s a pretty little blue-grey French bulldog with one eye and three legs, roughly a tenth Genny’s size, and Betty’s already dreading the territory wars that are ahead of them. Commie’s going to win, because Genny’s a baby, and then they’ll have to deal with Genny whining incessantly at the bottom of the stairs.

Still. Good practice, mediating between the two. Betty knows that Pepper and Jim in particular have been raising their eyebrows over her and Steve adopting another dog, and she’s refused point blank to bite any of the bait Jane’s dangled about clearing out the second-biggest bedroom in the house. 

They have cleared the bedroom. But that is  _ beside  _ the point.

“Remind me why I’m carrying the huge bag of dog supplies, and you’re holding the leash for our tiny new dog?”

“I’m incognito, Bets,” he says, grinning bright against the four-day scruff of beard, his eyes hidden behind ugly red-framed sunglasses and shaded by a baseball cap. “Can’t do the heavy lifting when I’m incognito.”

Much to Betty’s eternal disappointment, he’s also got a habit of wearing sweats when he’s  _ incognito.  _ They do absolutely zero for his ass, and they also make him look sloppy. Thankfully, he only goes incognito maybe once a week. If it was anything more than that, Betty would take her sewing scissors to his collection of navy-blue and muted grey sweats. 

The UnderArmour shirts can stay. Betty is a modern woman, but she’s got one hell of a taste for Steve’s vintage muscles.

“You can stand between them when they start fighting,” she warns him. “And you can get up to let them out in the middle of the night. I need more sleep than you.”

“People do sleep less when they’re in their nineties,” he agrees. “And it’s good practice.”

“You’ve got to stop saying things like that around Jane and Thor, hon. Thor’s a  _ fertility god. _ ”

Steve just digs into his pocket for his keys, humming what sounds a lot like a lullaby as he opens the door. Someday, if he keeps that up, Betty will smother him in his sleep.

 

* * *

Surprising everyone, Commie and Genny adore one another. Commie proves fiercely protective of Genny, which works very well considering how much of a coward Genny is when Betty’s not under threat. Commie barks at everything that even might be a threat, and Genny stands behind him like hired muscle. 

“Like us,” Steve says, cheerful and innocent, as if Betty can’t read that particular smug, shit-eating grin of his like a roadmap. “C’mon, Bets, they’re cute!”

“I never said they weren’t,” Betty says, “I’m just saying it’s  _ typical  _ that Genny has given up her position of keeper-in-chief of the household the moment someone new and bitey showed up.”

Commie is asleep on Genny’s shoulders, in front of the fireplace, and Betty’s sitting on Steve’s butt, trying to rub knots out of his back. It’s all very cosy and domestic, and Betty is incredibly glad that Jane helped her do a bug sweep just yesterday, so there’s no way Tony is seeing any of this. 

“Yeah, well,” Steve says, rubbing his face into the soft throw pillow under his arms. “S’good that they’re getting practice in.”

“I could crush your brain stem right now,” Betty warns him. “Do not test me, Rogers.”

“Nah, you won’t.”

“Nah, I won’t.”

“Might be good if we tell some of the others,” he says. “So they can practice a little, too.”

“If you tell Tony before I tell Pepper, I’m divorcing you.”

“We aren’t married, Bets.”

“I’ll find a way.”

 

* * *

Jane is completely unsurprised by Betty’s news, which is a little disappointing.

“You haven’t complained about Steve drinking your watering hole out of blackcurrant stout in months, Eliza,” she says, sharply focused on splitting her complicated pastry in two. “And you’ve refused Pepper’s home-made ice-cream  _ twice. _ You usually ask for seconds.”

“And Thor is a fertility god.”

“And Thor is a fertility god.”

Jane pats her hand with a grandmotherly sort of affection, finally finished parting her pastry, and smiles. 

“This is good news,” she says firmly. “I know you’re kind of freaked, but trust me - Thor adores you and Steve, so Junior is safe as houses. He  _ is _ a fertility god.”

Betty isn’t showing yet, but she thinks that might be a little because of how well she eats, now Steve’s really gotten the hang of cooking. When he moved in first, everything was plain and hearty and, truthfully, disgusting. Now, he’s developed a love of rich French food, with as much cheese and butter as he can get into every dish. He’s toned down the cheese since they received their unexpected news, because someone warned him about unpasteurised stuff, but if anything he’s upped the carbs.

She’s going to have an ass like a truck by the time the baby is born.

But she isn’t showing yet, is only just far enough along to start telling people, and knowing that Thor is in the baby’s tiny corner is a greater comfort than she’d like to admit.

 

* * *

Pepper cries. Really, messily cries, tugging Betty close and crying into her hair. 

“Oh, Betty! This is such wonderful news!”

“It’s pretty great,” Betty says, easing back a little from Pepper and definitely  _ not _ crying herself. “I’m thrilled, I promise - just a little overwhelmed, too.”

“I can only imagine,” Pepper says. “How’s Steve taking it?”

“He’s pissed at Fury for calling him to DC, but since no one except you and Jane knows, I think he’s being a little unfair. He’s happier than I’ve ever seen him, though.”

Steve keeps bringing home stuffed animals and teething rings and cute little t-shirts with duckies and rabbits and Winnie the Pooh on them. He went out and found a carpenter to make a crib, and he’s already been researching places he can get actual Irish lace for a christening gown. She also knows he’s been talking to a few bespoke jewellers, but he hasn’t actually mentioned that to her so she hasn’t mentioned it to him.

He’s good. Good enough that he doesn’t relish the fighting quite as much anymore. Good enough that he isn’t throwing himself into quite as many terrible situations during battle anymore.

“He thinks we’re having a girl,” she says, instead of any of that. “He’ll be happy either way, but I think he’s excited about having a daughter.”

“He’ll be a great dad,” Pepper says, with all apparent sincerity. “Wait - did you tell Jane before you told me?”

 

* * *

Steve calls from DC as soon as he gets home from each mission, and he’s always on a flight home the next morning. Even so, Betty startles when she wakes up and he’s sitting beside her on the bed with a copy of  _ What To Expect When You’re Expecting _ open in his lap.

“You’re showing,” he says, smiling like the sun. “Bets-”

“I know,” she says, pushing herself up so she can replace the book in his lap. “The doctor thinks she’ll start moving in the next week or two.”

“She?”

She reaches across him to the nightstand, where she left a copy of the ultrasound photo in an envelope for him. 

“She,” she confirms. “Say hello to your daughter, Rogers.”

 

* * *

Now, somehow, Betty and Steve have managed to stay out of the public eye a lot.

She sees Nick Fury’s hand in that, and maybe Jim’s - Jim’s the only one of all the suited-and-booteds with an actual rank, and Betty is fairly sure he’s pulled it for her sake since she and Steve got serious. 

Jim, who is currently sitting across the backgammon board from her, looks absolutely flummoxed, because she just asked him to be godfather.

“Betty Ross,” he says, pressing his hand over his mouth as if that’s going to hide the shine of tears in his eyes. “That’s cheating!”

“I was winning anyway,” she says, smiling behind her tea. “Well?”

“You didn’t need to ask,” he says, nudging her foot under the table. “You knew I’d say yes.”

“I was raised to be polite, Colonel.”

“I’m happy for you, Betty.”

She wins the game.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m happy too.”

 

* * *

“I’ll be home in three days,” Steve says, his bag on the ground at their feet. Bett’s wearing the ugliest shoes in the world, but they’re the only things that are actually comfortable right now. “Four days, max.”

“No jumping out of planes,” she warns him. “No anything that will cause me undue stress.”

“I promise,” Steve says, rolling his eyes.

“I’m serious,” she warns him. “Natasha is watching you. Natasha is  _ always  _ watching you.”

“Make a woman godmother to your child and you lose all loyalty.”

“She’s got your best interests at heart,” Betty says. “Meaning me and Baby, Rogers. So keep that in mind.”

“I’m gonna be fine, Bets. I really do promise.”

She leans up just enough to kiss him, and then Natasha is at his elbow, pointedly not smiling.

“Let’s go, Cap. The Lumerian Star awaits.”

 

* * *

Betty’s making lasagne, with Steve on speaker, when some crazy asshole starts shooting at his apartment in DC.

Tony arrives within fifteen minutes of Betty calling Pepper in hysterics, and she’s in the Tower within the hour. She doesn’t remember getting there, doesn’t remember a single damn thing except trying to call Natasha and not being able to get through.

She doesn’t try Steve. She doesn’t dare.

 

* * *

“Well,” Tony says, as they watch footage of Steve and Natasha and some new guy with wings fighting a weirdo in a mask and a bunch of goons during rush-hour traffic. “At least we know for sure that he’s alive, I guess.”

He walks out of the room, and Betty’s stomach feels a little less sick when she hears the low whine and boom of the Iron Man suit’s thrusters taking off.

Pepper presses a cold, damp cloth to the back of Betty’s neck.

“If he can survive super-Nazis and a seventy year deep freeze, he can survive whatever this is.”

Maybe - but Betty’s never heard of Steve hesitating during a fight before, and she saw the footage herself. He stepped back when the weirdo’s mask came off.

 

* * *

 

_ “It’s me, Betty. Haven’t got much time.” _

“You’re going after him?”

_ “He killed Fury. Steve… Steve says it’s Bucky. Bucky Barnes.” _

“But Bucky died during the war!”

_ “Yeah,” _ Natasha says, sounding hollow.  _ “But so did Steve.” _

 

* * *

Somehow, Clint is there.

“Now,” he says, pressing a cup of chamomile tea into Pepper’s hands and then lifting Betty’s feet up onto a little pouffe that definitely was not there ten minutes ago, “you two beautiful ladies are going to stay  _ right here,  _ and I am going to be your brave protector until we get all this sorted out.”

He’s guiding Betty to sit forward as he speaks, and when she sits back against the couch she finds he’s set her up with heating pads for the ache in her back.

“Steve’s an idiot, but he’s halfway indestructible,” Clint says in his sensible, practical way. “Nat’s the best in the business, and she wouldn’t be trusting this Wilson guy if he wasn’t able to hold his own. As for SHIELD, well, I think these assholes are going to get more than they bargained for - everyone I know at SHIELD is in love with Steve and-or Nat, and there’s always Maria Hill to contend with.”

Betty hasn’t met Maria Hill yet, but she’s heard enough fond mentions from Natasha to fear her. If Steve survives this, and he has to, maybe they can have Maria Hill over for dinner. Betty wonders if she likes lasagna, because it’s just about all she can stomach at the moment.

“And anyway, Tony is on his way over there now,” Clint says cheerfully. “Anyone Steve doesn’t punch and Nat can’t stab, Tony’ll blow up. Nothing to worry about.”

Clint then produces what looks an awful lot like the kind of filling Irish stew Steve so passionately devoured before he learned to cook, except there’s no fat sitting on the surface and it actually smells really tasty.

“It’ll fill you up, and there’s nothing in it that should upset your stomach,” he says, passing her a fork. “I know when Laura was pregnant, this was about all she could eat.”

“Laura?”

“My wife,” Clint says, looking just a lot sheepish. “And I’ve got two kids, with a third on the way - don’t talk about ‘em for safety reasons.”

Pepper looks just as shellshocked by this revelation as Betty feels, so it’s obviously  _ really  _ secret. Tony would know, otherwise, and pretty much everything Tony knows, Pepper knows too.

“I’m going to do a quick scout of the perimeter,” he says. “Betty, if you want more, ask Pepper to get it for you - I figure your legs are killing you, so keep them elevated. Pepper, if you need me, I’m on comms. JARVIS can get me.”

JARVIS is also refusing to show them footage from Tony’s suitcams, which is worrying enough that Betty eats the whole big bowl of stew without gagging once, something she hasn’t managed with any meal in about a week.

 

* * *

Bruce is way underground, working on some secret project of his and Tony’s, else Betty would go to him and beg him to go to DC. Instead, Jane calls and promises that Thor will be with them as soon as he can, but he’s on some far-off world with no cell signal right now. Darcy’s doing what she can, but even she can’t seem to hack the Bifrost.

That makes Betty laugh for the first time since last she spoke to Steve, and Jane also promises that she’ll be at the Tower as soon as she can. For once, Jane’s timekeeping is good, and she and Darcy arrive under Clint’s guard, armed with four pints of ice-cream and a lot of chocolate.

“This whole thing  _ really _ suits you, Doc,” Darcy says, leaning Betty forward and tucking an extra cushion behind her. “Not the stress, obviously, but the baby thing is a look.”

Darcy, as the only one of them not spiritually hyperventilating into a brown paper bag, keeps up a stream of cheerful, weightless chatter, aided by Clint upon his return from another patrol. It’s all that’s keeping Betty sane, until Darcy manages to get around JARVIS’ block on the TVs and suddenly, CNN is showing huge ships crashing into the Potomac, and Betty just  _ knows  _ that Steve is in one of them.

 

* * *

_ “The good news,”  _ Tony says, looking tired and a little worse for wear on the big holoscreen over the bar,  _ “is that he’s alive. So’s the traitor, and their new buddy.” _

Betty’s thrown up four times already since Tony found Steve on the riverbank. She feels like she might make it five, soon.

_ “The bad news is he’s beat the hell up. He’s going to be in hospital for a few days here in DC, and he’s going to need medical aftercare when he comes home.” _

“Is he awake? Can I speak to him?”

_ “The doctors have him under sedation to let the bones heal. I’ll have him call you as soon as he wakes up.” _

“Can he be moved?” Clint asks, sitting with his arm tight around Betty. Jane is behind her, rubbing her shoulders, and Pepper’s on her other side, holding her hand. “I don’t think the doc ought to fly right now, but I think Cap’d want her close by.”

_ “I’m working on it, but the doctors are fighting me. Plus, not sure how safe the airspace is here. I’ve put in a call to Rhodey, though. Should know more in an hour or two.” _

Jim is somewhere in California, doing his day job with the Air Force, and Betty wishes to God her father wasn’t such a monumental sack of shit - if he was even half-okay, she could call  _ him _ and ask  _ him _ to put a protective detail on Steve, but if she does that, the baby will probably never meet her father.

The way Tony’s talking, it came very close to that anyway.

Pepper gets the trashcan under Betty’s mouth for her record fifth time throwing up.

 

* * *

“ _ Hey, Bets.” _

“I’m going to kill you,” she promises him, counting the stitches over his eye and in his lip and on his cheekbone. How badly hurt is he if even those little injuries haven’t healed yet? “How dare you almost die?”

_ “Didn’t mean it. How’s Baby?” _

“She’s fine. Dancing a goddamn quickstep on my bladder, but she’s good.”

“Betty’s good too!” Jane hollers from the other side of the room, sounding  _ achingly  _ disapproving. “Not stressed to death or anything!”

“Jane doesn’t like you anymore,” Betty tells Steve, wanting more than anything to touch his poor, swollen face. “Be warned.”

_ “Thor won’t let her kill me,”  _ Steve says, far more optimistic than the situation warrants.  _ “But you are okay, Bets? You’d tell me?” _

“Like you told me literally anything this past week?”

They’ve never really argued over the secrecy Steve’s work with SHIELD has sometimes required before, but Betty’s aware that that’s because he’s never gotten hurt before, not really. Usually his worst beatings come when he’s out working with the Avengers, because he does a lot of the gruntwork - the shielding, of course, ha fucking ha - while Nat and Clint and Tony do the fine detail. Even then, it’s bumps and bruises. The worst she’s ever seen him was the time he lost a tooth, and that was only because he couldn’t eat chips for a couple of days until it had settled back into his gum and he grumbled non-stop because she wouldn’t let him into the Lays. 

She’s never come this close to losing him before. She never really thought that she would.

“Come home,” she tells him. “As soon as you can, come home. We’ll figure it all out once you’re home.”

_ “Love you.” _

“You too, you stupid asshole,” she says, ignoring how hard she’s crying. “Just come home. I’ll see you soon.”

 

* * *

He’s healed up a lot by the time he gets out of the helicopter on Tony and Pepper’s private landing pad at the Tower, but he’s still leaning pretty heavily on Natasha and he’s still bruised and he’s still got stitches in his lip.

“The only reason I’m not slapping you is because I don’t want to tear those stitches,” she tells him, and then she tucks herself as close around him as she can, annoyed beyond reason that he doesn’t smell of either his aftershave or their fabric softener. He hasn’t shaved in days, and these aren’t actually his clothes, and it’s the stupidest thing in the world to be mad about right now  _ but she is. _

“S’alright, Bets,” he murmurs, wrapping her up in his big, trembling arms. “S’alright, I’m home now, it’s okay.”

 

* * *

They stay in the Tower for a couple of days.

Commie and Genny are waiting for them in Steve’s apartment - much nicer than it was when last Betty visited - and both are remarkably well mannered, clustering around Steve and Betty’s feet but not jumping up on them or making a lot of noise.

“Thought you might feel better, having these two around,” Clint says, waving from the balcony doors. “I’ll check in later, Doc - let me know if you need anything.”

“He’s been great,” Betty says, watching Clint swan dive over the railings and wondering where his line is connected. “Everyone’s been great.”

“Except me,” Steve says, carefully lowering himself down into the corner of the big sofa. Genny immediately stakes her claim, laying her big head in his lap, and Betty curls up under his arm - Commie follows, fitting his sturdy little body around Baby’s bump like he can shield her from all of this. “Bets-”

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry. I know you’re not. Just tell me… Why. Why did you let him hurt you like this?”

“I didn’t-”

“Don’t you  _ dare _ lie to me, Steve,” she warns him. “Sam told me he didn’t even know you had a pregnant girlfriend waiting for you until Natasha told him,  _ after _ you nearly died. So tell me why this, this fucking  _ assassin _ was more important to you than getting home to me and Baby.”

“Nothing is more important to me than you and Baby,” he says, forcing himself up straighter - she can see how much it hurts, and wonders again just how badly injured he is. “You know that, Bets. This was… Something else.”

“Natasha said you recognised him. The man who nearly killed you. Is that why you didn’t fight back?”

“I did-”

“I’ve seen the  _ fucking  _ footage, Steve!”

The silence is only broken by their heavy breathing - hers, Steve’s, the dogs’. Betty’s crying again, but so is Steve, and she doesn’t really know what’s going on. She’s never been angrier or more relieved in her life, though, because at least Steve is here for her to be angry  _ with. _

“If I’d gone looking for him,” Steve says slowly. “When he fell. If I’d looked for him even half as hard as Howard looked for me, then maybe-”

He swallows, not meeting her eyes.

“I owe him so much, Bets.”

“Not your life. Not Baby’s father.”

He starts crying in earnest then, and she gathers him as close as she can with Baby and the dogs in the way. 

 

* * *

“I  _ am _ sorry,” he murmurs against the back of her neck, tucked like a custom hot water bottle against her back, his knees tucked behind hers, his arm heavy above her belly, below her breasts. “You know I’d never want to hurt you, Bets. But I know I did. I’ll fix this.”

“Just don’t do anything stupid like this again,” she says, “and we should be fine.”

Steve’s an idiot, but Betty knows he’s aware that she’ll leave his ass behind if he does this a second time. Better that Baby never knows her father than she knows him only to lose him.

 

* * *

Steve’s all healed up on the outside, by the time they move back home. Betty’s developed an itchy, scaly rash on her ribcage, and the doctor assured her it’s mostly stress and hormones, and probably some kind of very mild food allergy.

Clint’s all apologies, but Betty suspects it has more to do with all the ice-cream she’s been eating than the stew he keeps making to his mother-in-law’s recipe. She can’t get enough of either at the moment.

Healed up though he might be, Steve’s still cautious taking the stairs, and she knows he’s still got a lot of light sensitivity. That’s why she invites Nat and Jim and New Friend Sam over for lasagne and Monopoly, to help them both settle back in. They’ll keep the talk low and easy, and she can settle everyone around the big coffee table in the back room with the lamps on, and Steve won’t have cause for complaint.

Nat politely declines - something about forging new cover identities, which Betty accepts absolutely while also making sure that Natasha understands that the third bedroom in this house will always be free for her use, no questions asked, no warning needed - but Jim and New Friend Sam arrive with ice-cream and chips and a six-pack of pregnancy safe, non-alcoholic grapefruit sour IPA. 

Betty’s never understood non-alcoholic beer before, and she’s never understood why anyone would bother, but for some reason that dumb six-pack in Jim’s hand makes her well up.

“Put these in the fridge, Sam,” Jim says. “Me and Ross need a minute.”

Sam salutes, kisses Betty’s cheek, and lets himself into the kitchen without a word. Jim guides Betty carefully into the front sitting room, with the big window seat, and settles her in place.

“Okay,” he says. “Now you can cry without being embarrassed or worrying that you’re upsetting Pepper or thinking you have to be strong for Rogers. Let it all out, Betty.”

So she does. She loves Pepper and Jane, she likes Darcy and she’s really coming to like Clint, and no matter how much shit she gives him she really does love Tony, and she loves Natasha and if Nat trusts New Friend Sam then so does Betty, and God help her but she loves Steve.

But she’s known Jim Rhodes since they met at some hideous fundraising gala when they were nineteen and wanting to be anywhere else. Betty had been in a ballgown, Jim in full white tie, and their grandmothers had been sitting on opposite sides of the room - Gigi with the wives of the governors of Virginia and Maryland, Mrs. Rhodes with the wives of three members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Not the usual kind of mixer, in Betty’s then-limited experience of such things, but the kind that raised the most money. Betty was the sole heir to her mother’s family fortune at the time, fighting with Gigi’s help to keep her father from taking it away from her, and Jim…

Jim had been just the kind of friend Betty had needed. He always has been, and she’s done her best to return the favour over all the years they’ve known one another. That’s why she can do this with him and with no one else. That’s why he was the only possible choice of godfather for Baby.

“If he ever tries anything like this again,” Jim says, once she’s mostly cried out, “I’ll kill him. I promise.”

Jim has never, ever broken a promise to her. That’s why he’s number one on the very short list of people she trusts. 

New Friend Sam knocks on the door at such a perfect moment that Betty’s reasonably sure Steve could hear, and that he told Sam when to go.

“Steve’s made nachos,” he says. “Want some?”

 

* * *

New Friend Sam wins Monopoly, despite how hard Steve cheats. Betty likes him  _ very _ much.

 

* * *

Baby needs a stroller, one of the very few things they hadn’t picked up before the DC debacle, so Betty - enjoying Tony’s crazy leniency - takes a morning for herself and gets herself and her car down to Baby’s Den to start hunting.

Pepper and Jane - and Steve and Clint and Jim and Tony and New Friend Sam and Darcy and Helen, on a flying visit from Seoul - will all freak at her for doing this alone, but she’s still working through Steve’s near-suicide in her head, and time without any of them around is good for her. So she wanders around the baby store, and she tests out a couple of pushchairs, and she feels more at ease than she has in a while.

This is all fine, until she has to get the damn box into the trunk.

“God  _ motherfucking _ damn it,” she huffs, pushing her hair back with one hand and balancing the box with the other. It isn’t even that it’s all that heavy, it’s just that Baby’s getting  _ right  _ in the way of her being able to maneuver the stupid box into the stupid trunk.

“Uh, I can help. If you’d like.”

The man standing behind her, clean-shaven and neatly dressed but with the most terrified eyes Betty’s ever seen and thick leather gloves despite the warm day, is smiling anxiously.

“Sure,” she says, not quite daring to say much more. “Please.”

So she lets Young Paul Newman put the big, awkward box into her trunk, and then he returns her cart while she shuts the trunk, and then he returns to her.

The young Robert Redford who’s due home at six is going to be  _ so  _ pissed with her for doing this, but…

“I’m Betty,” she says, holding out a hand. “James, I’m guessing?”

He shuffles a little in his neat shoes, not quite meeting her eye.

“Yeah,” he says at last, shaking her hand very, very gently. “I uh- congratulations, ma’am.”

She pats Baby and smiles, wondering if Steve will be right to be pissed.

“Need a ride?” she asks. “I’m not going far, but it might shorten your journey.”

Putting Butch and Sundance back together might be the worst idea she’s ever had, but it could just as easily be the best. She’ll find out when Steve gets home for dinner. 

“So you’re Steve’s dame,” he says in that low, uncertain voice. “When’d you get hitched?”

“We haven’t. Maybe after Baby is born.”

James’ pale eyes go wide and a little more murderous than afraid.

“His mother’d tan his hide if she knew about this,” he says, “and my ma’s spinning in her grave.”

Seems like maybe Steve was right, and the killer haunting the Western world this past seventy years really  _ wasn’t  _ Bucky Barnes, if he’s still thinking like it’s the forties. That’s scary in a whole new way she hadn’t previously considered.

“We’ve been living in sin for  _ years,”  _ she says cheerfully. “Steve told me his mom was Catholic - how Catholic’re we talking?”

 

* * *

Steve gets in just before six, and immediately reaches for his shield.

She lets them have the front room, and she calls Helen.

“I’ve got a challenge for you,” she says. “Who’s the most discreet biomech engineer you know, and do they do house calls?”

Helen promises to come herself, with a team, if Betty can give her just a little more detail. Apparently, Helen’s been working on a little something that might be able to help, if her suspicions are correct.

Sometimes Betty wishes her friends were stupider.

 

* * *

To her eternal surprise, Steve is the one who says James can’t stay with them.

“Buck isn’t stable, Bets,” he says, looking uneasy but resolved. “I’m not risking you and Baby when I can visit him just as easy in a saferoom at the Tower.”

“And it’s easier for his doctors to visit him there than here.”

“That too. Helen’s team are working as quick as they can to earn his trust, but it’s slow going. Best we can do right now is put him somewhere with Tony’s kinda signal blockers, make sure no one interferes with the arm before we can get it off.”

And to make sure no one interferes with  _ him,  _ either - Steve knows about the implant tucked right beside James’ brain stem, but he doesn’t like mentioning it. Betty gets that, even if she does think he’s burying his head in the sand about that, and about how impossible it’s going to be to protect James once word gets out about who and what he is.

Nat’s been combing the SHIELD and Hydra files. She’s shared a few particular lowlights with Betty, and she thinks that even Thunderbolt would flinch at some of the stuff Hydra deemed acceptable. They’re both just hoping that Tony manages to show uncharacteristic restraint when  _ he _ goes through the files.

“I want to help him, Bets,” Steve says. “But the Triskelion made me realise that I can’t do that at my own expense. You and Baby have to come first, always.”

“Especially Baby.”

_ “You  _ and Baby,” he insists. “I’ve said it before, but I mean it, Betty - I love you. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to either of you, and I don’t mean to  _ let  _ anything happen. That’s my priority. That’s got to  _ be _ my priority.”

James is in the back room, putting together some kind of mobile for over Baby’s crib, and Betty’s guess is that his hearing is just as good as Steve’s - which means he can hear all of this.

“Word will get out,” she says. “And once people hear you’re helping him, they’ll start digging more into your personal life. You can’t protect us from that, hon.”

Betty’s been spotlight-adjacent her whole life, but there’s a big difference between all she’s experienced and being outed as Captain America’s partner, the mother of his child, and the woman who brought the Winter Soldier in from the cold. Realistically, she might  _ have  _ to bite the bullet and ask Thunderbolt for help - for her momma’s sake, he’d keep her safe. If it came to it. Her safety and wellbeing had been the only things he and Gigi had ever been able to agree on, after Momma passed.

“Probably not,” Steve concedes. “But I can try.”

 

* * *

The first paparazzo makes his move less than a week after James moves into the Tower. Betty is surprised they waited that long, and she’s just glad that Jane and Pepper are with her - otherwise she would’ve done her best to dropkick the asshole’s camera into the next borough.

“ _ Really,”  _ she grouses. “Can’t a woman even visit her OBGYN without some creep trying to get an upskirt shot of her?”

“Not when Captain America’s been up that skirt, apparently,” Jane says, waving Pepper’s driver over as if she hasn’t just said something outrageous. “C’mon, I’ll buy lunch and you can bring down your blood pressure - all this temper is bad for Baby.”

Jane’s plan has merit, until Betty spies a gossip rag on the table next to there’s with a picture of Steve out walking the dogs - well, walking Commie, since Genny’s a lazy beast and Steve’s a pushover, so she’s perched on Steve’s shoulder while Commie’s gambolling on ahead.

Genny never tried that shit until Steve came on the scene. She used to be quite happy to run along with Betty, until Steve put her up on his shoulder as a joke one afternoon, and ever since, she’s whined like a baby until he does it again. If he were anyone but Captain America, he wouldn’t even be able to  _ lift  _ Genny, but Steve is Steve and so he thinks nothing of carting a full-grown Newfoundland around like a backpack.

The headline emblazoned over this ridiculous, familiar photograph, nearly gives Betty a stroke.

_ CAPTAIN AMERICA: PATRIOT OR TRAITOR? _

“So they know about James,” Betty says, “and they heard Steve calling out to our dumb dog, and that means his service record means nothing? I’m going to  _ kill-” _

“No,” Pepper says, already on the phone, “you’re going to  _ sue.  _ That’s much worse.”

“And to be fair, there are nastier things they could say about Steve,” Jane says. “At least they didn’t accuse him of being a Yankees fan.”

 

* * *

Betty’s name trends on Twitter for twenty-seven minutes before Tony does  _ a thing. _

He won’t tell her what that thing is, only that Darcy helped him design it and he’s very impressed with her skills.

The  _ thing _ proves less effective in scrubbing James’ particulars from social media, and so the battle begins.

 

* * *

_ “Elizabeth?” _

“Oh. Hi, Daddy. I didn’t know you had this number.”

_ “Gigi gave it to me. Listen, Betty - I know we’re… I know I haven’t… You know you can come to me if you need anything, right, honey?” _

“I know, Daddy.”

_ “Good. Okay. Ah, I thought maybe you and I could visit Gigi, after you have the baby.” _

Few things have ever sounded quite as much like Betty’s personal definition of Hell.

“I’d like that,” she says, sounding almost sincere. “Thank you, Daddy.”

Sometimes, she misses him. She’s never quite been able to hate him, no matter how much she might have wanted to, and even Gigi - the mother-in-law who hates Thaddeus Ross more than anyone else in the world hates him, and that’s a long list - had once said that he’d be a better grandfather than he was a father.

Maybe. Maybe some good might come of all this shitstorm.

 

* * *

Betty goes into labour two weeks early, and only stops panicking when Jane texts her from outside the delivery suite to promise that Thor is also in the waiting room, freaking out the nurses and midwives because he’s in full armour. 

She only has Steve with her - doesn’t want anyone else - and she thanks Thor’s influence for how quick and easy the labour is, considering her age. She’s all done within two hours of her waters breaking, which seems miraculous, and Baby has a couple of wispy dark hairs and transparent eyelashes and the pinkest, roundest little face.

Steve, probably for the first time in his life, is speechless. He hardly dares to touch her, brushing his fingertips over her cheek and her little hand and her fat arm, but never lingering long.

“I never thought I’d-” is all he manages, before hiding his face against Betty’s sweaty hair. “ _ Bets.” _

“I know, Rogers. Believe me, I know.”

 

* * *

Bruce gave Tony a little basket to bring to the hospital, with a onesie patterned in double helices and a blanket in the shape of the periodic table and a crochet wrap done to look like Steve’s shield. 

Tony mentions something about a college fund, but Betty’s too overwhelmed by Bruce’s generosity and kindness to really hear him. She and Bruce made their peace, and he has always seemed genuinely pleased for her for finding happiness with Steve, but she could never, ever have expected so much warmth and sweetness from him.

She should have, though. She knows him well enough.

Pepper is leaning over the boxy little hospital crib with Jane and Thor, all three of them cooing tearfully, and there are stuffed animals and wrapped gifts stacked up on Betty’s bed table. Steve is rolling his eyes at whatever Tony is saying, and a knock on the door heralds Nat, Jim, and New Friend Sam.

“Clint sends his apologies, and wants you to know that your gift is safely in Baby’s room at home,” Nat says, kissing Betty on both cheeks and thumping Steve in the arm. “Now, where’s my godchild?”

New Friend Sam - who Betty should really just call Sam, at this point - hugs Steve and claps him on the back, and then he hugs Betty and kisses her hair as if it isn’t stinky and sticky by now. 

“Congrats, Betty,” Jim says, sitting on the edge of her bed and tucking his arm around her shoulders. “Proud as hell of you, you know that, right?”

“Pretty proud of myself too,” she says, smiling so hard she might just break. “Go look at her, Jim - me and Steve made the cutest kid.”

“I’d expect nothing less, Ross.”

Jim is the first one who dares to actually lift Baby out of the crib, balancing her against his chest and swaying just a little.

“You’re the fourth person to ever hold her,” Betty says, when he sways back towards the bed. “Third, if you don’t count the midwife.”

After he had a little cry, Steve had taken Baby and hadn’t wanted to put her down until the others arrived, and Jane started complaining that she couldn’t even see the baby since Steve was so tall. She’s only been alive a day, but she’s spent pretty much all of that time in the arms of someone who loves her, and Betty’s glad that Jim’s next in line after herself and Steve.

“She’s a real looker, Betty,” Jim says, smiling just as wide as Betty and sitting back down beside her. 

“Must’ve gotten that from her mother,” Nat says, leaning over Jim’s shoulder and making kissy faces down at Baby. “Another thing she could stand to get from her mother is a name, I think.”

“She’s had a name for months,” Steve says, eyes narrowed at Nat, as if he’s ever going to be mad at her again after DC. “We just haven’t felt like sharing.”

“Well, share now!” Tony says. “Then I can set up-”

“Grace Alexandra Rogers-Ross,” Steve says, sitting down on Betty’s other side. “It feels awfully big for someone so little.”

“Gracie Ross,” Jim says. “Yeah. I like the sound of that.”

 

* * *

Betty decides that she should be the one to tell James about Gracie.

“Hey,” she says, sitting outside the reinforced glass partition in his day room. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, you know,” he says, shrugging his empty shoulder. “Lost some weight, got my hair cut.”

His arm is gone, and so is the implant in his head, thanks to Helen’s team - there’s been talk about court appearances and appearing before House committees, but no one’s said a word of that to James and Betty would like it to stay that way, for now at least. His haircut is a little more modern, and with the sleeve of his pressed blue shirt pinned up neatly, he looks… Remarkably well.

Steve has told her that he isn’t remarkably well, that his doctors are worried about just how much repressing he’s doing to appear so well, but she has hope. The very fact that he came to them for help is reason enough for that.

“I made a person,” Betty says, shifting her hold on Gracie and tucking her blanket back. “Want to see?”

James comes right up to the glass, pressing his fingertips against it so he can lean in and get a good look at Gracie’s face. Her eyes are newborn-pale blue for now, and she’s got a few more wisps of dark hair, and Betty’s confident that there’s never been a prettier baby born, ever.

“Thank God,” James says. “I was worried she’d look like Steve.”

“She’s a peach, right?” Betty agrees. “Me and her are on leave for a while, so I was thinking we might visit Uncle James for lunch a time or two every week - would that be okay?”

“You’d want to do that?”

“You’re her uncle,” Betty says. “And I still owe you for getting that stupid box into the trunk, Barnes.”

“Then yeah,” he says, not even seeming to really notice the partition anymore as he starts to smile. “Yeah, I think that’d be okay.”

 

* * *

Much to Steve’s delight, he’s asked to issue a statement on Commie’s name, James’ return, and the rumours that he’s seeing Acting Secretary of State General Ross’ daughter.

“My dog’s name is Commander,” he says, “which is entirely on my partner, Doctor Ross. We also have a dog called General. You see the theme.”

Someone behind a microphone titters. Betty, watching live in Pepper’s office, does the same.

“As to Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes - yes, he has returned to America after seventy years of brutal treatment as a prisoner of war. We are currently working with the Department of Defense and the Attorney General with regards to his status, his time as a POW, and those acts committed by the Winter Soldier.”

There’s a hubbub of questions, because everyone knows by now that James and the Winter Soldier are the same body, if not the same man, but Steve keeps quiet until the hubbub dies off.

“And as to the rumours about myself and Doctor Elizabeth Ross - our daughter was four months old yesterday. Would you like to see some pictures?”


End file.
